“The door a fraction away, the lock still secured, a turn, that’s all it needed. Nearly ripping the doorknob from the wood as she gripped it savagely, it yielded quickly to her hand. Then, an unexpected feeling of metallic coldness touched the back of her head.”

Introducing David Lewelyn. He can read your mind. No, not really. But he does know when you’re lying. He’s a lie hunter. You can keep your face as still as wall. You can stiffen yourself like a corpse. You can shut your mouth tight. It won’t matter, because he’ll know. You can’t hide the truth, not from him. But does this make him the perfect liar?

When Lewelyn’s secretary, Hannah Miller, is found dead in her apartment with her wrists and ankles bound and countless slashes across her body, he is the LAPD’s immediate suspect, since he was seen at the apartment just hours before the murder. His DNA does not match the sample found at the crime scene, but does that really rule him out as a suspect and should he be allowed to help the police?

As the investigation progresses there are few leads to follow. The crime scene is near spotless. The DNA found at the apartment is not registered in the National Database. The few suspects that do emerge provide concrete alibis. And the only person who seems to know anything about Hannah is Lewelyn. As the investigators close in on the truth the prime motive behind the murder emerges. What they uncover is, murder is high in demand.

“Last year, I conducted research for Much Needed Rainvisiting Los Angeles twice to visit some of the places I would write about; reading books on criminology, body language, facial expressions, fiction and non-fiction novels of LA,” said Llanelli author R. G. Oram of the extensive research which has informed his debut crime thriller.

Much Needed Rain offers readers a unique glimpse into the different dimensions of murder, using characters to colour and drive the plot.

“Characters are the life of the story,” he explained. “Through them I am able to examine different perspectives of murder: the murder victim’s experience before her death, the investigation’s deductive process and the murderer’s journey to committing such a crime.”

• Published by Troubador Publishing, the book is priced £7.99.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Swansea, but having lived most of his life in Carmarthenshire, R. G. Oram has never stopped writing. In school, he and the rest of his English class were given an assignment to write a five-page short story. He ended up writing over 20 pages. When his teacher read the story he had written, she told him it was very good and he shouldn’t stop.